Comment Narrow minded criteria (Score 1) 509
Firstly, you haven't explained the context for which you expect them to keep up to date with existing technology.
If the person you are discussing is a consultant or in pre-sales in an evolving product role then you have a point. Its his duty in those positions to keep up to date on trends related to their particular sphere of influence.
Outside of that though your comments make me want to punch something.
My background is as a developer of over 30 years now with at least 10 years in management and roles including technical architect, system and business analyst and various levels of developer. I have always kept my skills relatively fresh by doing many different types of project for a variety of companies in all range of sizes.
As I always explain to others I would expect members of my team to always improve themselves. That doesn't mean that I expect them to learn new technologies and nothing else. In the world of IT anyone who is capable of displaying human rationale and the ability to understand people will always be head and shoulders over anyone who is purely technical with no soft skills.
Why? Simple, I don't have to waste time explaining to them that the beautiful thing they have constructed is absolutely no use to the user because they haven't bothered to interact and understand.
If you are judging people solely on technical skills then you have sadly misunderstood almost all of what IT is about. It is about making peoples life easier, not about giving a developer a grandstanding opportunity.
If the senior developer really is unproductive then its a management issue as others have said here. Otherwise you really need to sit down and think about what it is that they have that you don't.
If the person you are discussing is a consultant or in pre-sales in an evolving product role then you have a point. Its his duty in those positions to keep up to date on trends related to their particular sphere of influence.
Outside of that though your comments make me want to punch something.
My background is as a developer of over 30 years now with at least 10 years in management and roles including technical architect, system and business analyst and various levels of developer. I have always kept my skills relatively fresh by doing many different types of project for a variety of companies in all range of sizes.
As I always explain to others I would expect members of my team to always improve themselves. That doesn't mean that I expect them to learn new technologies and nothing else. In the world of IT anyone who is capable of displaying human rationale and the ability to understand people will always be head and shoulders over anyone who is purely technical with no soft skills.
Why? Simple, I don't have to waste time explaining to them that the beautiful thing they have constructed is absolutely no use to the user because they haven't bothered to interact and understand.
If you are judging people solely on technical skills then you have sadly misunderstood almost all of what IT is about. It is about making peoples life easier, not about giving a developer a grandstanding opportunity.
If the senior developer really is unproductive then its a management issue as others have said here. Otherwise you really need to sit down and think about what it is that they have that you don't.
